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Another half-work / half-shlubbing-around weekend day. 😐 Cassi had the day off, so I went and got her so I’d have some company (and a helper) and so she could have time away from home. So, like the last time she was here, she’s been working on her stuff a little more and I’ve been working on my stuff more… using that bit of motivation that you get just from having someone hanging out. 😊

A couple different phone calls to the pharmacy this morning and they’re still having problems with getting any of my workers comp related medications approved. 😒 Ten minutes on the phone, then on hold, and then told that they were gonna have to make some calls to get things straightened out. Haven’t heard anything back from them for the past couple of hours, so I’ll be calling again after I finish this entry. I’m not even trying to get them before last month’s supply ran out. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Heh… and as I’m writing this I got another text notification from the pharmacy saying that one item is on order, another is ready – but with a $12 charge, and no info about the third. 😕 But this confirms the typical problems I have every month… because if there’s a charge on one of these, that meant it was run through my regular insurance instead of the one provided by workers comp. I guess twelve bucks won’t kill me though.

And even though it’s Saturday, I got an actual registered letter that I had to sign for, from that “home care” medical provider that I mentioned a few entries ago. It says that they’re letting me go as a patient (okay?) and that I need to find someone else… despite having never used their services and not knowing who this nurse is that supposedly tended to me a couple times. 😠 So I sent them another email, despite just talking to someone from there on the phone, telling them to knock it off with the bills and the mail. It’ll probably do as much good this time as it did last.

Meh… so that’s been the first half of the day. And yeah, I know that a lot of the entries in the blog lately have just been me bitching about the mundane and trivial, but believe it or not – some people do like keeping tabs on me and knowing how things are going, even people that aren’t relatives or close friends. It’s weird to have made what are essentially digital pen pals, from people who have found the blog and have then messaged me for one reason or another.

But I guess I better throw on some pants and head in town for the one script that I can pick up. 🙄 And like I told Cassi, the reason I go in there most of the time, and deal with this shit in person – it’s because people tend to work a little bit harder when you’re standing right there, telling them exactly how things are supposed to be, and nudging them in the right direction when needed.

Heh… this was quite a ramble for just some medical billing filling bullshit. 😏

A month or two ago, Dad asked me if I’ve ever had moments where for no real reason, you just get a “content” or unexplained happy feeling that comes over you. 🤔 At the time I said no, but I think that how I’ve been feeling these past couple of days is what he was talking about. No real reason to be in a good mood, but here it is… for me to not exactly know what to do with it. 😏 Genesee keeps telling me to not dwell on it and just let it be, which is obviously the correct answer. 😁

After all of my appointments this week, I agreed with myself that today should be a day off. I did that with the intention of tricking myself though, because whatever I actually do accomplish by the end of the day – it’s now all just “bonus” stuff. 😊 So that’s been today… staying at home, inside my bubble (so nothing can accidentally crap up my mood), while working on office/organizational type things. 🤓 No need for details because I’ve already covered it in recent entries.

My PCP appointment yesterday was a mix of good and bad, which is what I expected. 😕 And rather than doing the referral to the psychiatrist (that I never got around to from the last visit) I told her that I’d compromise and set up some appointments with a therapist. 👩🏻‍💼 I already had plenty of stuff that I could have talked about, and that was before learning about my whammy medical condition. But I’ve always liked therapy, the handful of times that I’ve gone… so why not.

If my mood maintains I might go for a walk around Alley or Rising Park tomorrow. I need to stop doing an impersonation of a potato every day… so I’m gonna try to find my misplaced passion for photography/videography and maybe use that as an excuse to leave the house. Oh, and every damn human that I encountered while out doing my runnin’ this week… they’ve been nice, polite, friendly, jokey, etc. 😯 Local society acting so welcoming that I almost felt “normal” being out among them.

Oh, and the hospital finally called today to let me know that they read my letter, and that they’ve talked about it with the people involved. 😳 That’s good enough for me. Acknowledgement. Being heard. I’m hoping that they did take my concerns seriously, but not so seriously that anyone got hollered at or suspended or worse. I ended the call by joking with her, saying that I don’t wanna end up “The Patient with The Scarlet Letter” though, should I ever have to return there for another procedure. 😅

So between feeling a little accomplished today, and then hopefully doing something distracting over the weekend, I should have a few good days before I have to field calls from the two new doctors’ offices that are supposed to be setting up appointments for me. 😬☎ I really hope that the next steps don’t interfere with the fair and Phil Collins concert. I could live without going to the fair, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna miss that concert. 😠 Especially since Jim got my ticket as a “no particular reason” gift.

Okay, time to find something good on Netflix and get back to work, but not.

Today was a good day. I have some papers that I needed to sign which also required two witnesses, so this afternoon I went over to my friend Amy’s house so she and Rick could provide some initials and signatures to help me out with that. I ended up staying there about a half hour, and we stood outside talking and looking at various projects that Rick either had been working on or planned to start working on soon… and lemme tell ya, that guy can do almost anything. 💪🏻😎 And like I told him, sometimes it’s nice to live through someone else’s inspiration and motivation about their passion projects. 😏

After that I made a quick trip to the gas station in Rockbridge so I could a) fill my car with gas, b) pick up enough necessities to make it to next week, and c) grab some Burger King so I didn’t have to do any cooking tonight… all in one shot. Basically just a mini-run to keep me “good” here at the house until next week, when I intend to do a much bigger “stocking up” shopping trip before my surgery… just in case I don’t feel like leaving the house and mixing with the unwashed public for a while afterwards.

But what I actually did while I was out today isn’t the point. The point is that I did all of that stuff today without thinking about the problem with my leg at all. 😃 I may have had some pain as I was getting in and out of the car, but I don’t remember it. 🤷🏻‍♂️ And as I was walking around to get ready, or over at Amy’s house, or while I was filling the car and doing my shopping… once I got home I realized that I hadn’t been limping, at least as far as I know, through any of it. 😯

I’m not going to start cheering just yet, since I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs as I’ve been going through this… but yeah, it feels good to have not been nagged by pain for at least that small part of my day. I’m hoping that sitting on this giant silly yoga ball is actually making a positive impact, because I’m going to keep doing it. I’m also going to change the sheets on my bed and add that fluffy mattress topper thing that I bought a few weeks back.

I really needed something like this today. 🙂 I mean, I’ve got much less on my mental agenda today than yesterday, but it really was an uplifting surprise to have (for the first time in a couple of months) such a span of painless walking. And the older and more broken that I get, the more that I’m learning to appreciate these small victories.

I had my one-month followup with the chiropractor today, and despite me still having some hiccups in the performance and reliability of my right leg – he’s still impressed with the progress since I initially went in, nearly unable to walk. The biggest improvement, of course, is that the problem is only rarely in my back anymore. (All of this is “knock on wood” by the way…) He says that the problems that I’m noticing with my leg can still likely be improved upon – and he convinced me that I really do need that inflatable yoga/rehabilitation ball, even if I can’t do many of the “standard” exercises due to my gimpy left shoulder.

He says that even just sitting on the ball as I watch TV or work on the computer would help. It makes sense, in the same way that you can feel all sorts of little muscles working and correcting your balance if you try to stand on one leg as someone pushes against you – that’s what the muscles in my leg and lower back will be doing as I maintain my balance on the ball. So, he’s sold me on giving that a try for a while… much better than the “real” exercises did, which caused me to accidentally jack up my shoulder by over-doing it on my first attempt.

I stopped by CVS because I figured I could get some bread, pop, and chips at the same time as grabbing a cane and one of those balls… but of course they don’t stock them. (Next stop, Amazon) I guess it’s more rehab or exercise than “medical” but I thought for sure they’d have a few. I did grab a more practical and size-appropriate cane though, since the wooden one that I won at the fair years ago (and it was one of the “real” ones) is just too tall for the way that I need to use it. So that’ll help during the moments when I still need one.

But my leg… he said everything is still fine, and I shouldn’t feel any urgent need to bring it up with my family doctor yet. I mean, I could, obviously, but he reassured me that there’s nothing going on there that I need to be overly concerned about. And he’s probably right with everything he told me… it’s just that everyone wants to snap their fingers and be better, and sometimes things just take way longer than you expect.

Alright, gonna try to hit the sack early again tonight. I got plenty of sleep last night, probably from being worn out from all the crap that I was nervous about that day, so I’m gonna see if I can make it two in a row. Had some good conversation with friends today, lots of things that made me forget about things for large part of the day, so I’m hoping to get a little more of that tomorrow. G’night, all.

I ended up getting almost 11 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night, likely thanks to my normal evening meds and a couple Tylenol PMs taken at just the right moment. Sadly, I still woke up tired, at least physically… but my motivation game was strong. I guess this was the right day for that combination though, since it’s the weekend and there really wasn’t much that I could do “out and about” to continue my meager progress from last week.

I’ve looked up a bunch of different doctors and “family practice” offices in Lancaster and nearby cities, so I’ll be able to make some calls and maybe even stop by some of these places on Monday. 🙂 I’ve also researched some urgent care places and narrowed it down to two that may be able to help with the tests that I need. 🤨 That’s my backup plan, should the “find a new doctor that doesn’t have a two month waiting list” thing fail. 😒 And then on top of that I’ve gotten names and info from our local hospital’s site, so I’m prepared to go there to talk to someone about my predicament if need be.

My main concern (after just getting the “serious stuff” started) is doing this in a way that won’t screw me over when it comes to my insurance and the bills. 😳 I assume it’s always like this, since it’s been this way with any insurance that I’ve ever had, but basically you have to jump through all of the required hoops. 🙄 Like, you can’t just go to a heart specialist and ask for an EKG without having been referred to that heart specialist by your “normal” doctor. 🤔 I mean, I guess you can… but your insurance won’t pay for it without the referral.

So yeah, off and on throughout the day was all of that, and then in the evening I remembered that I needed to make a couple phone calls. The first was just returning a call from one of my attorneys regarding their recent court actions on my behalf, and the second was to leave a message for the company that I’ve chosen to trim my hedges and spirea bushes, to let them know that I’m on board.

Tomorrow should be a lazy day. 😏 I can’t think of anything that I’ve forgotten, at least not right now, so hopefully I’ll be able to sleep in for a bit before I go to visit with Mom and Dad in the afternoon. If I don’t get too late of a start, I might even try to hit a couple of thrift stores before returning to Maven, the homestead, and a rapidly-approaching Monday morning.

Monday:

Called my doctor to make an appointment about my thyroid. They said the earliest they could get me in was the end of June. The end of fuckingJune. 😠

Looked around and learned that the FMC-linked clinics in town have “Walk-In Wednesdays” for new patients, people that don’t have an appointment, etc. 🙂

Oh, and despite being nowhere around poison ivy when I worked in the yard the other day, I now have a bit of poison ivy on both of my hands. 😑 Awesome.

Tuesday:

Went to the MRI place to have them print out my results for me. Sat for almost an hour before they were able to get that done. 😒 (New computers or something.)

Now that I’ve been able to read them myself, they aren’t good, but they aren’t necessarily bad bad quite yet. 😕 A little more urgency for the Wed appt now.

Received the determination from my Franklin Co Court workers comp case, which is 21 pages long and full of case law and obscene amounts of legal-ese. 🤔

The results were in my favor, which is awesome, but my mind is still focused on getting up early to make sure I’m at the walk-in clinic on Wednesday when they open. 🤨

Wednesday:

Slept about 4 hours (the same as most nights lately) then woke up at 4am and waited until close to noon to head in town and get in line at the doctor’s office.

Arrived 15 minutes early to an empty parking lot and a sign on the door that said all of the offices were closed today for employee training. 😐😑😣😡🤬🤦🏻‍♂️

Sat in the parking lot, debating if I should drive around town looking for someone to run down, but decided to go visit Dad instead. (I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide my level of joking on that last comment… heh)

Keep in mind… I’m already twitchy about phone calls and appointments and such, I’m already feeling physically miserable lately, plus I’ve got workers comp shit on my mind. Plus plus I now know what the results of my MRI are, and it’s rather important that a few additional tests are needed sooner than later. 😳

I’m glad that I went out to see Dad though. I had already psyched myself up and found the energy to potentially endure a long, long wait at the doctor’s office – so hanging out for a few hours with Dad, talking, was definitely a better way to spend that time. So I do have those couple of silver linings… the win in court (which, unfortunately, can still be appealed to the Ohio State Supreme Court) and the visit.

I’m taking the rest of the day off now. I’m not gonna think about any of this negative shit for the rest of the day, so that way when I get up tomorrow I can hopefully make some phone calls regarding insurance, cards, workers comp shit, etc. 🤞🏻

Yesterday was an all around recipe for failure. 😒 I was still dealing with the pharmacy issues and already feeling like shit, but I had made a promise to a friend and I was determined to not be a disappointment again. 😞 For her birthday, a couple of months ago I bought Cassi two tickets to a concert she wanted to see at the Newport, and that show was last night. It was never my intention to go with her, as I just can’t do it right now (I didn’t even go see Skillet at Winter Jam) but I wanted her to be able to take a friend or her sister to share the fun with.

Unfortunately they didn’t have a ride to get to the show, so I went up there, picked them up, took them to the show, dropped ’em off, and then I had to find something to do until the show was over and I could pick them up again, take them home, and then make my way back home myself. 🤔 I didn’t mind doing that at all… it was part of the gift. But I was already in bad shape before I left, and the sea of humans and traffic on campus only made things worse. 😬 I was gonna just find some thrift stores or something to kill time, but there were just too many people so I needed to go elsewhere.

That lead to one of the high points of my evening at least, after deciding to go over to Hollywood Casino. I hadn’t been there since maybe last summer, and I remembered that being in a casino often masks my pain… but not so much last night. 😐 It was fun, but not fun, if that makes sense. 😏 Too much time in the car, too much sitting in uncomfortable chairs… and it just kept getting worse. The one saving grace is that I kept losing and winning at a rate that had me only slightly down from when I walked in – and then right when I was leaving, I hit on a machine that Jim always says I should play. 😃🤷🏻‍♂️ This makes the second time he’s picked a winner for me.

But anyway, by the time I got home around 11pm… omg… worst neck pain that I’ve had in months. 😓 I’m not yet going to assume that the steroid injection is wearing off, since there were other factors, but yeah… it took exhaustion to finally make me sleep, because there wasn’t a single position that I could turn to that would make it go away. That sort of pain that makes a person go, “Oh shit… I’m really screwed if it just stays like this.” But like I said, thankfully, today the pain was down probably 90% from yesterday.

I guess I should wrap this up. 😏 Waking up feeling somewhat okay today… it’s allowed me to sit and plan my way towards the weekend in a way that I might be functional and okay. Don’t get me wrong, I hate that have to do any of this, and I hate that I have these days where I know I should do absolutely nothing, before baby-stepping my way out of it… but despite how it makes me look or how it may affect others, I have to start figuring out how to not be physically miserable and emotionally fucked because of it. 🤷🏻‍♂️